Play Framework modes

Play like other frameworks can run in different modes because we are usually like to run our program in different situation and these situations need their configuration. Production is one of play modes. In this mode as the name suggested we are ready to deploy our application where user can use.As a result requirements are different.

Some common configuration in Production mode :

We are confining https

Using production data base not testing one

Play doesn't show errors

Play framework run as long term process and if you are log out of your server your application will run

If your app fails Play will clone another application and run that so your app run forever except you turn it off.

and so on (it is based on your Production config file)

Your answer :

If you just want to test your app in remote server and see what happened, it's okay to use activator run this command runes Play app in development mode and application will killed if you exit or log off (error will shows up and so on). But if you want to use your app for Production it is necessary to run all of these steps.